320 



The course of these veins in the bo-svels of the earth, is somewhat 

 analagous to the blood veins of animals ; they rise and fall, and swerve 

 to the right and left. The whole of the veins in the ridge running east 

 and south of the Wisconsin river must have a deep depression to pass 

 the low land at the Portage, and rise again seme three or four hundred 

 feet south and west of it ; because springs break out in numerous places 

 at levels of that height above the Portage, to the south and west of 

 it. Indeed, it is said that springs come out near the top of the Blue 

 Mounds, nearly one thousand feet higher than the Portage. 



In an early part of the present century, a man living near the Housi- 

 tonac river, in Massachusetts, dug himself a well, sinking some feet into 

 the rock. Some time after, his neighbor, half a mile distant, and on the 

 opposite side of the river, (the bed of which was at least one hundred 

 feet below the common level of the two houses) dug a Avell, and drilling 

 into the rock, he struck the vein which supplied the first well. The first 

 "well became dry, while the water rose to the surface of the second, and 

 run off" to the river. Well No. 2 was plugged, the water bailed out, and 

 the wall built. During this process the water rose as usual in well No. 1 ; 

 but as soon as the wall was built, and the plug removed from the rock 

 in the bottom of well No. 2, well No. 1 went dry again. The matter 

 being thus settled, that the same vein furnished both wells, a compromise 

 was eflfected by partially plugging No. 2, leaving the remainder of the 

 •water to pass on to No. 1. Whether, if No. 2 had used, or rather suf- 

 fered the whole of the water to rise and run off", it would have been "turn- 

 ing water out of the natural course," and thus become a subject of liti- 

 gation, I leave others to settle. 



One thing which I omitted in its proper place I will mention here — that 

 is, how to ascertain the depth of the vein of water. I believe it is an estab- 

 lished and admitted fact that the electric fluid can and will be attracted 

 at an angle of 45'' with the horizon, and from a distance of from fifty to 

 seventy feet. This, if I am not mistaken, is the rule expected to govern 

 in reference to "lightning rods." And this is the .rule in reference to 

 water in the ground. When the operator ascertains the perpendicular 

 attraction, he makes his mark, and then, retreating beyond the influence 

 of the attraction, approaches until the attraction takes effect, and the dis- 

 tance from that point to the perpendicular point, shows the depth to be 

 dug to obtain water. 



One thing more, and I shall have done. A query has been raised, 



